12. The role of international organizations in the integrated management of international water bodies: The activities of the UNU, UNEP, and the World Bank in the Middle East

(introductory text...)

International water bodies require integrated management

The need for international efforts and a role for international organizations

The UNU: Accomplishments to promote sound management of international waters

Assistance given by UNEP and the World Bank to the Aral Sea programme

Programme for the Caspian Sea basin as an international effort

Conclusions

References

(introductory text...)

Mikiyasu
Nakayama

International water bodies require integrated management

National interests among countries are likely to diverge when it
comes to international water bodies. Given the international context, however,
inefficiency caused by interdependent water uses cannot be resolved through a
single government's policies. Upstream countries tend to see little benefit from
increasing or maintaining the flow and quality of water for downstream
countries. Without enforceable international water-use rights established by
treaty, countries make decisions without considering the consequences for other
basin countries. However, securing such international agreements and putting
them into practice is often difficult. The end result may be environmental,
social, and economic losses in the downstream countries that are greater than
the benefits to the upstream countries.

More than 200 river basins are shared by two or more countries.
These basins account for about 60 per cent of the earth's land area. Fragmented
planning and development of the associated transboundary river, lake, and
coastal basins are the rule rather than the exception. Although more than 300
treaties have been signed by countries to deal with specific concerns about
international water resources and more than 2,000 treaties have provisions
related to water, coordinated management of international river basins is still
rare, resulting in economic losses, environmental degradation, and international
conflict (World Bank, 1993).

International conferences such as the 1992 Dublin Conference on
Water and the Environment and the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and
Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, have stressed the need for the
comprehensive management of water resources, using the river basin as the focus
of analysis. Cooperation and good will among states sharing a drainage basin are
essential for the efficient development and utilization of international rivers
and groundwater aquifers. In order to fulfil their own economic goals, it is
important that such states formally collaborate to exchange data, share water,
preserve the environment, and generate development programmes that are of mutual
interest and joint benefit (World Bank,
1994a).

The need for international efforts and a role for international organizations

Basin states in developing regions may lack the capacity to
develop and manage their own portion of shared water resources. The
international community may provide both technical and financial supports to
develop and implement an integrated water resources management scheme. Through
cooperation, states may obtain aid that might not otherwise be available to them
(LeMarquand, 1981).

Overcoming institutional barriers, between riparians and within
the various basin countries, to the management of international watercourses is
not an easy task. Managing institutions, such as river basin authorities, often
involve only one ministry in a basin country, and the decisions of such an
institute may not be conveyed to the central decision-making mechanism of that
basin country. Thus, specific treaties or agreements are needed to codify the
responsibilities of participating nations and the facilitating agency. The
lessons of experience with agreements and joint actions between riparians, such
as the World Bank's difficult but successful nine-year effort to facilitate the
1960 Indus Water Treaty between India and Pakistan, suggest that external
assistance and encouragement are valuable and sometimes essential ingredients in
establishing international water agreements. Where the basic institutional
framework exists, international agencies should provide support and
encouragement. However, in case the regional institutional framework does not
work satisfactorily, an international organization could still serve as a
mediator. It was actually the case with the Interim Mekong Secretariat, which
was composed of three basin countries of the Mekong river basin, in the
1991-1995 period. The member states failed to solve by themselves the "veto
power" issue, namely if a riparian country could put a veto on another basin
country's project in an international water body, and the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP) acted in a mediatory role to get through the
impasse and let the basin countries develop a new agreement (Nakayama, 1997).
International agencies can also assist riparians in developing and managing
water resources and in facilitating the implementation of treaties.

The three main objectives of international efforts should be (a)
to help riparian countries address their problems with international water
resources, (b) to remove the obstacles to priority development activities that
are usually held hostage by disputes over shared watercourses, and (c) to reduce
inefficiencies in the use and development of scarce water resources caused by
the lack of cooperative planning and development. Since no single international
organization commands all the skills, experience, or resources necessary to
achieve the needed cooperation, collaborative efforts among potential donors,
international organizations, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) would
promote the sound management of international waters (World Bank, 1993).

The cooperation and good will of riparian countries are essential
ingredients for the efficient development and utilization of international
waterways. International organizations should attach the utmost importance to
riparians entering into appropriate cooperative arrangements for such purposes,
and stand ready to assist them in achieving these objectives. In cases where
differences remain unsolved, international organizations should require that the
country offer to negotiate in good faith with other riparians in order to reach
appropriate agreements or arrangements (World Bank, 1994b).

Experience in the past has shown that the use of third parties in
a mediator's role can facilitate dispute resolution, guide complex bargaining
toward acceptable outcomes, and help maintain balance and commitment by riparian
countries to the negotiating process (World Bank, 1994c). International
organizations, such as the United Nations University (UNU), the United Nations
Environmental Programme (UNEP), or the World Bank, have many advantages as such
a third party because each one of these can (a) act as an independent broker;
(b) provide leadership inherent in its international role in donor coordination;
(c) catalyse the mobilization of official as well as private funding; (d)
provide an important channel for gaining access to expertise; (e) be creative in
promoting appropriate process solutions; and (f) help ensure systematic
evaluation of alternative solutions through the appropriate use of analytical
techniques.

The UNU: Accomplishments to promote sound management of international waters

The UNU is an autonomous academic organization under the United
Nations umbrella. Environment and sustainable development form one of its five
major areas of concentration. The programme area entitled "Environment" responds
to the United Nations' Agenda 21. The overall objectives of UNU activities in
the field of management of international waters focus on the comprehensive and
objective study of regions that share major international water bodies, with a
view to providing bases for the sustainable environmental and political
management of critical resources (Uitto, 1995).

The UNU Middle East Water Forum was organized, together with the
International Water Resources Association (IWRA) and UNEP, in Cairo in February
1993. Participants invited to the Forum in their private capacities (27 leading
authorities on Middle East waters) discussed the complex problems of sharing the
limited water resources available in a very arid region (Biswas, 1994; Murakami,
1995; Wolf, 1995). Participants found the Forum useful in terms of developing
personal contacts, new ideas, and an improved understanding of many technical
facts. As a result of the Forum, the Middle East Water Commission was
established.

Another UNU activity relates to environmental management of the
Aral Sea region. The Aral Sea has been one of the regions studied under the UNU
project on "Critical Zones in Global Environmental Change" (Kasperson et al.,
1995). As an international (but not as an intergovernmental) academic institute,
the UNU, through its global networks of scholars, has been actively involved in
the identification of problems and solutions to water issues in the Middle East
and other
regions.

Assistance given by UNEP and the World Bank to the Aral Sea programme

The Aral Sea basin covers an area of over 690,000 km2,
which is shared by Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and
Uzbekistan. Small portions of its headwaters are located in Afghanistan, Iran,
and China. The basin contains the two largest rivers of Central Asia - the
Amudarya and the Syrdarya. These rivers are fed by the snowmelt and glaciers
from the mountains. The Amudarya's sources are mostly located in Tajikistan,
with a few watercourses originating in north-eastern Afghanistan. The Syrdarya
originates mainly in Kyrgyzstan. It runs across small portions of Tajikistan and
Uzbekistan and through the Kazakh provinces of Chimkent and Kzyl-Orda (World
Bank, 1994d).

In 1960 the Aral Sea was the fourth-largest inland lake in the
world. Since then, however, its area and volume have decreased significantly to
sixth place. This resulted from the fact that the river inflows from the
Amudarya and Syrdarya have greatly diminished as a direct result of water
withdrawals for newly developed irrigated farmlands both within and outside the
catchment. By 1989 the sealevel had fallen by 14.3 m and the surface area had
shrunk from 68,000 km2 to 37,000 km2. The salinity of the
Sea had increased to eight times its 1960 level. The major environmental
problems now observed in the Aral Sea basin include: the reduction of the Sea,
the destruction of its aquatic ecosystem, the degradation of soil quality in
many parts of the basin, pollution of surface water and groundwater of the delta
areas, depressed economic activity owing to the collapse of the Aral fishery and
related small industries, and adverse health impacts on the population because
of the lack of safe potable water and food.

Inefficient irrigation practices coupled with heavy chemical
applications, cultivation of cotton and rice, and inappropriate development
policies are among the important causes. The Soviet policy for the region in the
1950s and 1960s called for the expansion of irrigated agriculture in the
Amudarya and Syrdarya basins in order to promote cotton production, so that the
Soviet Union could become self-sufficient in this commodity. The area devoted to
paddy-rice production was also extended, despite the fact that the region is so
close to the northernmost agro-climatic limit of rice cultivation. The primitive
irrigation techniques applied induced massive leakage and evaporation, which led
to the waterlogging and salinization of the irrigated fields.

Recognizing the crucial need to save the disappearing Aral Sea and
the need to provide an overall perspective of the Aral region, the former Soviet
Union, in 1989, asked UNEP to work on the environmental issues of the Aral Sea
basin. UNEP has been working on the environmental management of international
river and lake basins within the framework of its EMINWA (Environmentally sound
Management of INland WAters) since 1985 (David et al., 1988). The EMINWA
programme is designed to encourage and assist governments to integrate
environmental considerations into their management and development of inland
water resources, with a view to reconciling conflicting interests and ensuring
the harmonious regional development of water resources - harmonious with regard
to the water-related environment throughout entire water systems. The most
important aim of the EMINWA programme is to introduce this synthetic approach to
the management and development of freshwater resources on a basinwide scale and
to promote sustainable development in entire inland water systems. The first
priority is to help countries that share common river/lake/aquifer basins to
develop their water resources in a sustainable manner and to use them without
conflict. UNEP had assisted basin countries of the Zambezi River basin (David,
1988) and of the Lake Chad basin before it was asked by the former Soviet Union
to work on the Aral Sea basin.

As a result of meetings of the working group of experts and field
visits, a report ("Diagnostic Study for the Development of an Action Plan for
the Aral Sea") was issued by UNEP in September 1992. The objectives of the
Diagnostic Study were, within the framework of the EMINWA programme of UNEP, (a)
to define specific environmental problems and their impacts in the present and
the foreseeable future, and to help basin countries to formulate programmes for
the incorporation of environmental concerns into the management of water
resources, and (b) to increase the awareness of various governmental
institutions involved in socio-economic development activities about their
potential impacts within the basin, and to encourage potential donor countries
to contribute to the implementation of the projects (David et al., 1988).

The Diagnostic Study presented a comprehensive analysis of the
causes of the Aral Sea crisis, but did not recommend a specific action plan. It
provided, however, a basis for elaboration and analysis of the strategies for
further activities for mitigating the consequences of the ecological disaster.
Upon completion of the Diagnostic Study by UNEP, the World Bank took over the
role of coordinator of Aral Sea activities among basin countries, donor
countries, and international organizations. In response to requests for
assistance from the five "Aral Sea republics," a World Bank mission visited the
region in late September 1992. After a review of existing reports, field visits,
and discussions with the ministries and local officials of the region, the
mission presented an aide-mémoire recommending four major thrusts to
address the Aral crisis: (a) stabilizing the environment of the Sea; (b)
rehabilitating the disaster zone around the Sea; (c) undertaking comprehensive
management of the international waters; and (d) building regional institutions
to plan and implement the above programmes (World Bank, 1994e).

The World Bank, in collaboration with UNEP and the UNDP, organized
an international seminar in Washington D.C. in April 1993 to mobilize the
support of donor countries and international agencies for the proposed programme
to address the crisis. Ministerial-level representatives of the five Aral Sea
basin states presented their respective heads of states' message requesting
international support for the programme and confirmed their strong commitment to
cooperate in order to address the Aral Sea crisis. The donors supported a
Central Asian proposal to establish a "Fund" and provided a substantial grant to
finance the start of work on the first phase of the programme.

The "Aral Sea Program - Phase 1" was subsequently formulated by
the Executive Committee of the newly established Central Asian Republics'
Interstate Council for Addressing the Aral Sea Crisis, with assistance from the
World Bank, UNEP, and the UNDP. The Program has four main objectives: (a) to
stabilize the environment of the Aral Sea Basin; (b) to rehabilitate the
disaster zone around the Sea; (c) to improve the management of the international
waters of the Aral Sea basin; and (d) to build the capacity of the regional
institutions to plan and implement the above programmes. The Phase 1 Program
included 19 projects designated to achieve the objectives stated above. In broad
terms, 3 projects were intended to initiate the first steps to improve
conditions in the disaster zone, 7 projects were intended to improve conditions
in the disaster zone, and 9 projects were centred on managing the water
resources of the basin. In addition to 19 projects, the Program included a
separate project for building the capacity of the regional institutions to plan
and implement the Program.

Based on the fact that the basin countries of the Aral Sea (a)
agreed upon the Program, and (b) decided to establish a river basin
organization, some donor countries have developed their projects along with the
Program. This suggests that the assistance given by international organizations
has proved quite effective in accomplishing some of these achievements, which
might not otherwise have been attained in such a short
time-frame.

Programme for the Caspian Sea basin as an international effort

The Caspian Sea is the largest closed basin lake in the world. The
Sea is about 1,200 km long and about 310 km wide. Its coastline is approximately
7,000 km long. The area of the Sea is 386,400 km2, measured at 27.5 m
below mean sealevel, and its drainage basin is 3.1 million km2. Five
nations -Azerbaijan, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, and
Turkmenistan - share the catchment. The Caspian Sea possesses a variety of
marine and coastal ecosystems. Several important economic activities in the
Caspian have a bearing on the Caspian environment. These include stocks of
sturgeon, on which many people in fisheries depend for a livelihood, and which
are an important source of export revenue. Oil exploration and exploitation
around the Caspian are also of major importance.

The level of the Caspian Sea over the past 100 years has exhibited
a clearly expressed tendency towards lowering. In 1977, the level reached a
record low mark of 29.0 m below mean sealevel (Rodionov, 1990). As the Sea
declined, human activities such as farming shifted onto the newly exposed
seabed. The Soviet government responded with engineering solutions, developing
plans to bring water to the Sea from wetter parts of the Soviet Union (Glantz,
1995). Shortly after this record low, the water level of the Caspian began to
rise. This rise has been unusual in terms of the rate of its acceleration and,
more importantly, its uninterrupted duration (Rodionov, 1990). Environmental
problems are mounting: coastal inundation because of sealevel rise, water
pollution by raw sewage and oil production, fishing pressure and its impacts on
fish populations (especially sturgeon, the main source of high-value caviar)
(Glantz, 1995). The fall in lake level between 1927 and 1977 resulted in
lakeward encroachment of all kinds of economic activity, not the least important
of which has been those of the petroleum industry. These included oil
exploration, oil field development, and pipeline construction. Shoreline changes
necessitated the lakeward movement of facilities such as moorages, docks,
embankments, etc., as the lake area decreased. The unexpected rise in the lake's
level since 1977 has caused the inundation of everything built on the exposed
lakebed during the course of the 50 years of lake-level decline (Shafer, 1994).
The Caspian basin countries and their peoples face significant environmental and
resource management issues and problems, many of which are interrelated. These
issues and problems have not yet been analysed in a comprehensive and systematic
manner.

During the past several years, the Caspian Sea coastal states have
undertaken a number of initiatives with respect to the environmental protection
of the Caspian Sea. In 1991, the basin countries organized the first
multilateral conference on the environmental problems of the Caspian Sea, which
called for international coordination of activities aimed at the protection of
the marine environment and the establishment of an international monitoring
system. At Almaty, Kazakhstan, in May 1994, the coastal countries held a
regional meeting on the implications of climate change for the Caspian Sea
region. In the "Declaration on Environmental Cooperation in the Caspian Sea"
adopted by the five basin countries, the provisions of the draft Convention for
the Conservation and Utilization of Bioresources of the Caspian Sea were
reaffirmed (Meeting of the Representatives of the Caspian Sea, 1994). Concern
was expressed about environmental degradation of the Caspian Sea basin,
particularly in its coastal zone, and about marine biological resources. The
states declared that:

1. Sealevel rise, irrational utilization of natural
resources, and other adverse factors represent significant risks to the region
of the Caspian Sea.

2. Urgent needs exist to define the status of the Caspian Sea and
its big-resources, including specially protected reserve territories and water
bodies.

3. The fastest implementation of coordinated measures on
stabilization of the ecological situation will prevent further degradation of
the ecosystem of the Caspian Sea and its coastal territories.

4. Coordination of international cooperation in research,
management, economic incentives, and harmonization of legislation with the goal
of conserving the biodiversity of the Caspian Sea and its coastal zone is the
highest priority task of all Caspian states.

5. The Caspian Sea states affirm their desire to cooperate
constructively in environmental management and actions aimed at sustainable and
ongoing utilization of the biological resources of the Caspian Sea.

6. The Caspian Sea states will cooperate fully in the preparation
and implementation of programmer of joint activities on protection of the
environment which should establish the basis for rational utilization of natural
resources and identify a priority sphere of activities.

7. The representatives of the Caspian Sea states call on the
international community to support their joint efforts and provide assistance in
the development of the environmental programme.

The meeting called for coordination among the basin countries and
international organizations, and agreed to request that UNEP prepare an action
plan on the protection and management of the environment of the Caspian Sea.
UNEP, UNDP, and the World Bank have agreed to respond to recent policy
commitments made by the governments of the basin countries concerning the
Caspian environment by embarking on various steps to assist the governments in
the preparation and implementation of a comprehensive and integrated
environmental and resource management plan for the Caspian (called the Caspian
initiative). The ultimate aim of the Caspian initiative would be to facilitate
the integrated management and sustainable development of oceans and seas,
including enclosed and semi-enclosed seas, and coastal and marine areas
(including exclusive economic zones), and the protection, rational use, and
development of their natural resources.

Discussion among basin countries of the Caspian Sea and
international organizations is in its very early stages. It is, thus, still not
known what sort of activities are to be included in a programme that could be
developed for the Caspian Sea. However, if the previous successful case in the
Aral Sea basin can be viewed as a precursor, similar steps could be taken toward
the development of a (Caspian programme. A working group of experts, composed of
representatives from basin countries, donor countries, international
organizations, and NGOs, should be established. A diagnostic study could then be
prepared by the working group, as a baseline for understanding the circumstances
of the water body and its catchment. A draft programme or a draft action plan
could be developed, based on the findings of a Caspian Sea diagnostic study. At
the same time, donors' meetings could be organized to let potential donor
countries and organizations know the nature of the issue(s) and possible ways
and means for solution(s). The programme developed should be adopted by basin
countries as a binding document. Riparian countries should also agree upon the
implementation scheme for the adopted programme; this may include the
establishment of a river/lake basin
organization.

Conclusions

Past experiences accumulated by the UNU, UNEP, and the World Bank
have shown that the following aspects are essential in promoting the integrated
management of international water bodies: collaboration among international
organizations and donor agencies; and the involvement of the central
decision-making mechanism.

Collaboration among international organizations and donor
agencies

Although the importance of collaboration among various
organizations, each with a different mandate, has been stressed, it has not
always been realized in the past. For example, UNEP developed, between 1985 and
1987, the "Action Plan for the Environmentally Sound Management of the Common
Zambezi River System" (David, 1988). The plenipotentiaries of the Zambezi River
basin countries (ministries responsible mostly for water and/or environmental
matters) signed the International Agreement on the Action Plan for the
Environmentally Sound Management of the Common Zambezi River System in 1987 at
Harare, Zimbabwe. The implementation of the Action Plan has nevertheless been
very sluggish, because only a few donor agencies showed interest in the
implementation of the Action Plan (Balek, 1992). As before, development
activities in the Zambezi River basin have been conducted in an uncoordinated
manner by riparian countries and donor agencies.

International organizations often stress the importance of
coordination among basin countries. However, as a matter of fact, basin
countries sharing an international water body usually have such mechanisms as a
river basin authority or a lake basin commission for this purpose, and the
remaining problem is how to make these institutional arrangements functional.
Ironically, what is generally lacking is a mechanism that permits international
organizations and donor agencies to coordinate their activities in a particular
international basin.

One possible excuse for the lack of such a mechanism is that it is
only the recipient country that is in a position to provide this mechanism -
neither international organizations nor donor agencies are supposed to
collaborate by themselves. However, if donor agencies assume that a basin
country (in the developing world) lacks the capacity to manage its own water
resources (and they provide it with various forms of aid), it would be very
naive to presume that the same country would have the capacity to coordinate
projects that would be provided by donor agencies. The lack of coordination may
stem from the fact that (a) international organizations and donor agencies are
themselves competing to support the "better" projects, (b) few of these
organizations are willing to be coordinated by another donor agency, (c) little
effort has been given to the establishment of a mechanism for coordination, and
(d) neither international organizations nor donor agencies are keen to enhance
the capability of the recipient country to coordinate aid operations. Thus,
efforts are clearly needed to develop an appropriate mechanism so that
development activities in an international basin could be coordinated both among
basin countries and among international organizations and donor agencies.

The involvement of the central decision-making mechanism

Another essential factor in promoting integrated management of
international water bodies is the involvement of the central decisionmaking
mechanism in each basin country. The success of the World Bank in the Indus
Water Treaty in getting the agreement of the riparian countries (though the
Treaty did not aim at integrated management of the basin) can be attributed to
the fact that the Prime Minister of India and the President of Pakistan were
involved in the process and consulted throughout the negotiation process. The
impasse in the implementation of the Action Plan for the Zambezi River basin may
stem from the fact that (a) only ministries in charge of environment in basin
countries, which were responsible for UNEP related issues, participated in the
development of the Action Plan, (b) other ministries working on development
projects in the basin had little to do with the Action Plan, and (c) the
commitment of the central decision-making mechanism in each basin country was
not obtained for implementation of the Action Plan.

Implementation of the "Aral Sea Program," promoted by the World
Bank, can be used as a prototype because (a) the Program was supported by the
top decision makers of the basin countries, (b) efforts were made to coordinate
the activities of other international organizations and donor agencies, and (c)
ministries in charge of developing projects in the catchment actively
participated in the formulation of the
Program.

References

Balek, J. 1992. The Environment for Sale. New York: Carlton
Press.

Biswas, A. K. (ed.). 1994. International Waters of the Middle
East: From Euphrates Tigris to Nile. Bombay: Oxford University Press.

David, L. J. 1988. "Environmentally sound management of the
Zambezi River Basin." International Journal of Water Resources Development
4(2), pp. 80-102.

David, L. J. et al. 1988. "The environmental management of large
international basins." International Journal of Water Resources Development
4(2), pp. 103-107.

Uitto, J. I. 1995. "Management of International Waters in the UNU
Programme." Opening address at the Forum on Caspian, Aral and Dead Sea
Perspectives on Water Environment Management, Tokyo, Japan, 28 March 1995. The
UNU, the International Lake Environment Committee Foundation (ILEC), and the
UNEP International Environmental Technology Centre (IETC).

Wolf, A.T. 1995. Hydropolitics along the Jordan River: Scarce
Water and Its Impact on the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Tokyo: United Nations
University Press.

World Bank. 1993. Water Resources Management - A World Bank
Policy Paper. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.

_____1994a. A Guide to the Formulation of Water Resources
Strategy. World Bank Technical Paper Number 263. Washington, D.C.: World
Bank.